I love the story behind this story, because it shows how the most ordinary things can spark an author's imagination! I belong to a writing camp that has members from all over the US and around the world, and one day one of the Texas girls made a comment about how she could tell it was getting to be winter because the robins were coming back. This very much confused the northern girls who were used to losing their robins in the winter and getting them back in the spring, and a short discussion ensued, in which the phrases "take care of our robins" and "I'll send them back in the spring" set something in my story senses tingling. After some thinking and fiddling and figuring out a whole lot more backstory than I could delve into within the word limit, this story was the result, and you can still see the inspiration in Miss Kate and her robins.

Many of the names in Everything don't have any special significance beyond attempting to be accurate to the time period (and sometimes pay homage to the family's Scottish heritage), but there are a few that mean a little bit more. Did you catch any of these connections?

Bobby and Kitty Hamilton

It might be obvious that Bobby's named after his grandfather (Kate's brother Robert), but did you catch that Kitty is named after Miss Kate herself? Kitty was a common shortening of Katherine/Kate, so her name certainly conveys the family's lingering love for their long-lost aunt. You also might not be wrong to see the pairing with Robert, who had died before the children were born, as a tender way of mourning what seemed just as final a separation.

Stewart, Ashby, and Lee McCoy

Did anyone pick up on the theme here? It's a subtle reference, but if you guessed that their father had been a Confederate cavalryman, you're correct. The war was over by the time he met and married Kate's sister, but the echoes of it resounded for a long time, and naming his sons after his former commanders seemed the kind of thing a stubborn ex-soldier would do.