The last sign said Montreal was 69 miles away, and soon after, Amanda's dad pointed out Canada on the horizon of a calm lake. I watched, absorbing as much as I could of the beautifully unknown place, though it was only vaguely brown and wooded. In the warm tangle of coats and sweaters on the backseat, I felt the enchantment of faraway drift alluringly close. Amanda fiddled with the radio knob.

The Mississquoi river is rich blue with banks of skinny trees that look like silhouettes of themselves. I don't know what's on the other side of the car because the sun flashes its dusk anger at the window when I turn to look. I think I see fields of scratchy brown grass fighting to be green. Geese fly in a wobbling triangle across the pink orange sky, and after nearly six hours on the road, Amanda turns to say we're there.

Little yellow lights are strung into awkward angels along the road in Malone. The evening is deep and wintry, I can tell by the sad lights of grocery stores and petrol pumps, and by the woman who nudges her chin into the folds of her scarf as she waits to cross the street. Low buildings stretch along the way, dim and quiet, until we turn away from the town by a bright Domino's. The grey road widens blankly, and Amanda's dad tells me the prison is to the right. I remember Amanda's jokes about Malone's population: 4000 civilians, 8000 prisoners, and a couple of thousand cows.

Outside my window, well away from the edge of the road, fences enclose a compound of glaring lights focused on clusters of cells. It is unsettlingly normal, the space between misshapen lives barred from living, and a car of Thanksgiving people with their favourite music and bottled water. When we turn the next corner, telephone lines swing across a canvas of dark sky like in a tritely pretty photograph.

We shoot straight down the road, flat and barren fields reclining on both sides, a cottage popping up warm and alone sometimes, and stop at a house with carved pumpkins withering on the porch. A little boy opens the door enough to peek through as we unload the bags, running away when we step into the warm, frayed room.