I had been married to my husbanda for nearly three years, and I had never once walked through the front door of his childhood home.

I had been married to my husband for nearly three years, and in all that time I had never once walked through the front door of the house where he grew up.

I'd met his parents plenty of times — birthdays, a few holidays, the occasional long weekend. But they were always the ones who drove to us, or we'd split the distance and meet at a diner off the highway. It never seemed odd to me. That was just the arrangement.

Then one Sunday, on the way home from Universal Studios, everything changed.

We'd been driving for a couple of hours, both of us worn down to the nerve. The car smelled like sunscreen and french fries. There were melted candy wrappers jammed in the cupholders and a gift-shop bag wedged under my feet. Nathan was squinting at the GPS when he said, kind of offhand, "You know, we're only about twenty minutes from my parents' town right now."

I looked over. "Okay?"

He smiled. "What if we surprised them?"

I honestly thought he was kidding. We were exhausted, the kids had been bickering since the state line, and after a full day of walking around a theme park I did not feel remotely ready to sit in my in-laws' living room. But he wasn't kidding. He looked genuinely lit up about it.

"They're always home on Sundays," he said. "Mom would lose her mind over the kids showing up out of nowhere. And you'd finally get to see the house. I've told you a hundred stories about that place."

I hesitated. "Shouldn't we at least call? What if they've got plans?"

"That kills the whole surprise." He laughed. "Come on. When are we ever going to be this close again?"

There was something sweet about it, the spur-of-the-moment feeling of it, so I gave in.

Twenty minutes later we turned onto a quiet street lined with old oaks and houses that had clearly been there sixty years. Nathan slowed down and stopped at the curb in front of one of them.

It was smaller than I'd pictured. In his stories it always sounded bigger. Two cars sat in the driveway.

"See?" He was already unclipping his seatbelt. "They're home."

The kids started grabbing for their door handles, but Nathan turned around. "Give us one minute, guys. I want to make sure Grandma and Grandpa aren't napping before we all come pounding on the door."

I laughed and told him I'd walk up with him.

We went up the driveway together. He was pointing at a row of hedges by the porch, telling me how he used to crouch behind them during hide-and-seek with the neighborhood kids, when his voice just… stopped.

He'd gotten close to the big front window. He looked in.

And every bit of color left his face.

He stepped back fast, like the glass had burned him.

"Oh no," he said, barely above a whisper.

"What?"

He turned to me, and I didn't recognize the look on his face. "No. No, no. Let's just go. Right now."

He was already walking back toward the car.

"Nathan, what are you talking about?" I hissed after him.

"Forget it," he said, not slowing down, not turning around. "Come on. We're leaving."

That's when I knew, for certain, that something was very wrong.

He was halfway down the driveway. I know I should have followed him.

Instead I took a step toward the window.