On the morning of her 66th birthday, Louisa Logan MacAdam woke as a winter sunbeam filtered through a gap in the Carolina pines outside her bedroom window. It was 7.30.

She turned away from the harsh light, reluctant to face the day. Feeling slightly guilty, as always, she reached her socked feet out from under the down coverlet and felt around for her slippers, her bare legs tingling from the sudden cold as her nightgown rode up. Her feet found the slippers by muscle memory, and she forsook the warmth of her bed for the chill of the hallway, pausing to turn up the heat. The floor furnace came on with a satisfying thump, and she shuffled on across the old linoleum rug to the bathroom where her clothes were already hanging.

She washed and dressed quickly in the morning chill. She brushed her fluffy white hair and added a touch of lipstick, giving the result a quick critical look of approval in the speckled mirror. As her Aunt Mattie Emma had always told her, 'They can't take your pride, honey, if you won't give it to them.'

Turning on the coffeepot, Louisa grabbed her heavy wool coat from its peg by the door and made her way around the holly bushes at the side of the house, down the long driveway to pick up the paper and mail.

Looking back from the mailbox, Louisa laughed to herself to see her old one-storey house - the one she was born in, the one she'd inherited from her father - standing so isolated against the pines and bare sycamores. Not much of a Christmas Eve setting, she thought. The snow-covered vistas she'd no doubt see on the cards she clutched against the wind were invented by someone else. Picture-perfect was for people who didn't live in Apex, North Carolina.

Over a steaming cup of coffee and a couple of warmed-up biscuits, Louisa checked the paper for local items - not many, the 'big-city' paper wasn't much on tiny Apex, though the wedding announcements showed one of her former fourth-graders as a radiant bride; she must send her a card with a small check, she remembered the girl fondly - and then carefully wiped off the knife she'd been using to butter her biscuits, and slit open the Christmas cards one by one.

One card - a Christmas birthday one - from Joe's sister, who never forgot, the rest from former pupils to whom she'd been 'the lady with the nicest smile'. She smiled that smile to herself, now, as she arranged the cards on the mantelpiece over the unused fireplace, then tied on a bibbed apron to begin her household chores. Getting ready for her guests.

After all, a Christmas Eve birthday is special.

It hadn't been so special when it happened, Louisa thought to herself as she washed her few dishes. She'd been born in that bedroom in the back - the one she kept closed now.

Her mother had died in that bedroom, two hours later. Aunt Mattie Emma had told her, later, 'Logan women always give birth hard.' Hard had been the word, and then her mother lay, hard and cold, in the room Louisa never visited.

Her father, a dour mechanic, had never forgiven her for taking away the one shiny thing in his life, his lively and beautiful wife. He hadn't even looked at the baby, barely nodded as her old-maid sister Mathilda had told the doctor what names to put on the birth certificate - the ones the expectant mother had picked out, Louisa May, for their favourite author - and then, seeing that there was no comfort to be had here, taken the infant to her house.

Louisa had been happy with her aunt, she reflected as she dusted the Christmas ornaments placed lovingly around the parlour - she never bothered with a tree, although Joe's sister's boy always offered to set one up for her. Louisa gave particular care to the tiny carved 'gingerbread house', and pushed the little button so that the light shone out of the window. This had been Aunt Mattie Emma's. Louisa had been allowed to take it with her that January day, the coldest and bitterest Louisa ever remembered - when, barely 12, she had had to pack her bags and leave the dead woman's house to move to this house. Her father's house. And leave the warmth of women's confidences for the icy silence of male resentment.

Louisa set the gingerbread ornament with a sigh, and picked up her feather duster, the memories coming unbidden now.

She worked around the room, giving attention to her treasures - her mother's music box, the carved humidor that had been her father's one vanity. She opened it and inhaled the faint scent of tobacco.

It had been Louisa's turn not to forgive.

The six years that followed had been hard, full of long, brooding silences broken by sudden outbursts of violence. The house had been a prison then, from which Louisa, head held high and with makeup carefully covering the bruises, had escaped to the haven of school and good grades. The day the undertaker had taken away the body - its stony heart having given out at the age of forty-four - Louisa had thrown the leather belt in the trash, given the place a good cleaning, and taken the metal box from the closet to look for title papers.

Since her father had had the courtesy to die on the day following Louisa's eighteenth birthday, she had found herself the owner of a small but serviceable house, an old Ford pickup, and a small bank account. She was also the beneficiary of a life-insurance policy which allowed her to avoid the future her father had planned for her - a job as doffer at Cinderella Knitting Mills - and attend North Carolina State University, where she had been graduated with honours and a degree in elementary education.

Closing the humidor lid with a snap, Louisa went back to the bedroom. She laid out her dress for the evening, a dark-green knit that brought out the warm brown of her eyes. Joe had told her that. He'd loved that dress. And she could still wear it - her figure was still trim. She laid out shoes to match, and the necklace, so she wouldn't forget. The necklace Joe had given her for her birthday - he was the only person who had ever made sure to give her a birthday present, not using Christmas as an excuse for one gift only.

Joe had given her the necklace here, in this very room - they'd moved into her house, Joe giving up his interest in his late parents' home to his married sister. Louisa had kissed him, delighted, and then told him her news.

It had been Joe's turn to be delighted. He loved children. Poor Joe.

Louisa cast a look around the bedroom, nodded in satisfaction, and went back to the kitchen for a sandwich lunch. She opened a drawer, searching for a pickle fork, and stopped as her hand brushed a small, looped silver spoon in the corner. She picked it up, rubbing the tarnished thing between her fingers.

Joe, Jr, had been 'a perfect baby', according to the doctor, the nurses, according to Joe, who couldn't get enough of his wonderful son and his wonderful mother.

But Louisa had felt...empty inside.

And guilty. Guilty for not loving the baby. Guilty for finding his crying an almost unbearable torture. Guilty for feeling pain when he fed. One day, as the infant sucked greedily at her breast, Louisa, fighting the urge to push him away, wracked with spasms, had looked down at her son, who had looked up at her.

She had gasped with the knowledge she thought she saw in his eyes. Knowledge, and triumph, as if he knew how much he was hurting her. As if he reveled in it. Louisa had turned away, fighting nausea now on top of the pain. She told herself not to be stupid.

Just because he had his grandfather's eyes...

Louisa laid the baby spoon back in the drawer and closed it. After a quick lunch, she set about making cookies for the Watch Night Service at church next week. They'd need a lot of food. Quite a few people showed up to see in the New Year with songs and prayers. She sprinkled flour on the rolling-pin and pushed the dough flat, still thinking.

After Joe, Jr.'s funeral, friends and family had rallied round. Crib death, one of the most painful things that could happen to a young couple. Hardly a day passed for weeks that someone didn't send a card with a prayerful sentiment, or stop by with a gift of food. They had been kind.

Joe had never stopped loving her. But he had stopped...touching her. He had grown more distant as the months passed, and something unspoken - some unanswered question - had hung in the air in the old house. To fill her days, Louisa had gone back to teaching, rediscovering the joy of other people's children. Deprived of this comfort, Joe had become taciturn and melancholy, finally taking refuge outdoors of an evening, repairing cars for friends in the yard. Louisa had missed his companionship, though she could no longer bear the reproach in his eyes. When winter came again, Joe had spent his evenings in the garage, where he was fast assembling a workshop.

Louisa slipped the cookie sheets into the oven, and poured a cup of coffee while she waited. The garage had been where they'd found Joe, the life crushed out of him by a falling engine block. Freak accident, they'd all said - one stripped screw. Again, the outpouring of sympathy for the widow had been great. The Baptist church down the road was small, but full of good-hearted folk. And her pupils had always been a comfort to Louisa, every year a new crop of hopeful faces.

The cookies baked, cooled, and put away in tins for next week, Louisa went for a short walk before dark, out to the garden to pick some fresh greens growing in the lee of the house. She brought these in, cleaned them and bagged them for later, then cooked and ate her dinner. Realising that it had now gone dark, she went to draw a bath.

It was time to get ready for her guests.

After enjoying the luxury of a bubble bath, Louisa put on her green dress, and the jewellery, and her best high heels, brushed her hair out and freshened her lipstick, and went to light the lights in the parlour, bringing with her the basket she brought out every Christmas Eve, and setting it by the fireplace, checking to see that the three hooks were in place on the mantelpiece. Then she turned on the television, watching several Christmas specials while sipping a late cup of coffee and allowing herself two of her fresh cookies.

After all, her guests wouldn't be arriving just yet.

Perry Como had just finished singing, 'Do You Hear What I Hear?' when she glanced up at the clock. Almost eleven. Time to get ready. Louisa took her dishes into the kitchen and washed them - she could never abide to leave a dirty dish in the sink. Then she returned to the parlour and stood by the one modern thing, besides the television, in her old house: the CD changer given her by a former pupil, now a professional musician.

Louisa didn't bother with it much - she preferred to make her own music on the old piano by the inside wall - but on this night, she needed it. Her old pupil could not have known how much she prized this gift.

It could play six CDs in a row. Judiciously chosen, six CDs could make seven hours of music.

Louisa chose judiciously. Two CDs with Handel's Messiah, always a favourite, three with traditional carols. The final disc with Christmas folk tunes - it was surprising how many there were. 'I Wonder As I Wander' was a lovely tune, although the bad grammar always jarred with her, 'like you and like I', indeed. But her favourite song was the last one on the disc, Harry Belafonte singing 'Mary's Boychild'. That song always brought a tear to her eye. She set up the CD player so that she could start the sequence with a press of the remote button, and set the remote on the side table next to her armchair. Then, with a glance at the clock, she turned to her other preparations.

Opening her Christmas Eve basket, Louisa took out three miniature Christmas stockings, hanging each one from a hook on the mantelpiece. In each stocking she carefully placed one item:

In the first, a pillbox, the one that had dropped out of her father's lifeless hand as he had fallen, clutching his chest, onto the bed in the back room. The bed Louisa had been born in.

In the second, a tiny pillow - not the original, but made of a scrap of Joe, Jr's baby blanket, a soft and fuzzy green. It had worn a bit over the years, but it would see her through her lifetime.

In the third, a small wrench. Louisa stopped to wipe off a spot of rust where the chrome had worn thin.

She stepped back, checking her work, and then went for the chairs, a task a bit more awkward. She flattered herself that she was a healthy woman of... almost 66, now, but the lifting came harder this year than last year. She managed, though, to set the three heavy dining chairs in front of the dead fireplace, one before each of the Christmas stockings. Then she took her place in the armchair, smoothing her dress and crossing her legs, ladylike, at the ankles. She held the CD remote in her hand and waited.

At two minutes to midnight, precisely, two things happened: Louisa became a year older, and her guests arrived.

They filed in, silently, their footsteps making no sound on the old hardwood floor. They did not look around - they knew this place - but sat down, each in his chair, and turned their eyes upon Louisa.

Louisa studied each one, her gaze steady, though her knuckles were white where her hand gripped the armrest of her chair. The middle-aged man in overalls - he never got older - balding, with the scar on his upper lip from an old fight, looked back at her with the same implacable hatred with which he had regarded her that day, just before he'd felt the attack coming on, and reached for his pills, and taken what should have been nitroglycerin, and the look had turned to shock...

The man in the middle - almost a stranger to her, though his features were as familiar as the back of her hand. He changed every year, grew - first up, then older, until he now appeared to be as old as the man beside him. His clothes changed, too: tonight he wore a suit, as if dressed for his wedding, perhaps. His look was the same as usual, puzzled, hurt, questioning...missing the love of his mother. Louisa blinked back tears, but stared ahead, unflinching.

The third man, like the first, had not aged. Joe sat there, looking younger than his own son, his hands folded in his lap, a few grease stains on his jeans. The expression on his face was the hardest to take, though Louisa met his gaze as she had the others.

It was a look of...understanding. And forgiveness.

The clock struck midnight, and Louisa pressed the remote button, never taking her eyes from her three visitors. The visitors who did not need coffee, or cookies, or the lights that burned in the room (but, oh, Louisa needed them), or the warmth of the floor furnace (but, oh, Louisa needed that), nor the sound of the tenor voice that echoed in the room, enjoining someone to 'speak comfortably to Jerusalem'.

And how Louisa needed that.

Seven hours of music. In Apex in the dead of winter, dawn comes about seven a.m.

Seven hours to go. By the time she heard 'Mary's Boychild', Louisa knew, her guests would leave. It would be over.

For another year.