The Brays Won't Die

My parents had the impeccable taste when I was born to give me one of the loveliest names in the land: Amber Noel Bray. It melted off the tongue, and I would dream of those 13 letters gracing the covers of all the books I would write. The perfect name.

I love the name Bray. It makes me think of the green hills of me homeland, Ireland. The bonny white sheep dotting the hills. Me shepherd pa driving them down a country lane. In truth, I am a mutt--a European hybrid of German, French, English, Irish, and Scottish. But I love to claim the Irish the most, with their wild passions and poetry, and so I do. And I hug the name of Bray.

But then I met a Van Schooneveld. I fell in love. I took his name. And if that's not love, I don't know what is.

My desertion of the Bray clan was the third in our family, a family of all girls. The Brays were fast dying out. We thought there might not be hope for our bonny clan here in America. There were only 2 men left to carry on the name, and they didn't seem to be populating the place. But then.

Evan Bray was born. Hooray for the Brays!