Excerpted from Jaguar, a finalist for the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing 2025.
It was hard to stand out in the family alone. Benito’s parents, tías and tíos, valued children more than they valued money. They valued mothers more than they did models. When a man in the family became a father, he might as well have become a judge, or a reverend. You could be an arsonist, a seasoned gangster. You could even have slept with the priest. But if you became a parent, you would be alright in their eyes.
Tío Esteban was forty-one when he went to prison again. And Tía was older: forty-five. It didn’t seem likely that they would become parents, so all faith in them was lost.
Because they were married, they were sent to the same sprawling prison in upstate New York, the E. Roulet State Correctional Facility, where they first took their vows. And in the time they were incarcerated, they were allowed to meet in a private space. “It looks like a cheap motel room,” Tía told Mom when she finally called, referring to the conjugal trailer where she and Tío had their visits. “Not that I ever been to one.”
Mom went every month, bringing the fertility medicine that the doctor prescribed, curious whether Tía had gotten her period or not.
“Stop asking me. When you see my belly as big as a basketball, you’ll know. They say I could have twins, even triplets. They say my belly might be so big, I might need something to support it.”
“You mean like a bra?” Mom asked.
“I’m gonna need a bra for this fucking belly.”
In prison for the second time, Esteban grew depressed. One day, in the cheap motel-like room he said, “I want to make you pregnant, and I want to get clean. But I can’t do either one, Negra. I’m sorry I put you through this. If you want to leave, I won’t stop you.”
“What the hell you mean?”
“I just been thinking. I think about my mistakes. All the things I’ve done to people. I can’t sleep or eat.”
Tía Rosa didn’t know what to say. Upset, she started to grab her things to leave, but Esteban started knocking on the door for the guards before her.
The next day Tía called Mom on the phone.
“He’s going to kill himself,” she said.
“Ta loca?”
“No, I know he will.”
Something in Tía’s murky voice made Mom believe her.
“If you don’t do something, I’ll never speak to you again,” Tía said. “Nunca.”
Mom called Jenny, the person at the prison she always talked to, to arrange for Tía’s pills. She left messages, but she didn’t hear back.
Finally, a few hours later, the phone rang. A man on the other end stated he was from Esteban’s section of the prison.
“Mr. Morales has been transferred to a different wing,” he said.
“Why?”
“Are you his wife?”
“No.”
“Then we can’t release that information.”
“He’s my brother-in-law. Did he try to—”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s confidential. May I speak with his wife, Rosa Morales?”
Mom told him where Tía was.
“Mrs. Morales is incarcerated too? Let me look at the file.”
Several minutes passed. Then the man came back on the phone.
“Okay, so it’s not likely she’ll be able to reach him where he is.”
“Yes, I know, sir.” Then Mom asked where Jenny was.
“Jenny works in the women’s prison. I work with Mr. Morales. And I can’t disclose anything to you.”
When Mom spoke to Tía the next day, Tía still hadn’t heard from Esteban.
“Why would he want to kill himself?” she wailed. “I say when he goes. He doesn’t get to say! I say.” Tía’s voice was so loud and terrifying that Mom pulled the phone away from her ear.
“Cálmate, lady. You’re going to get yourself a stroke.”
Tía started to cry. Then she said, “Did you ever know somebody so crazy?”
“You mean besides you?”
On the day Tía Rosa was scheduled to see Esteban for their visit, she waited for him almost the entire time in their assigned room. Then a guard knocked on the door. “Are you Mrs. Morales?”
“Yes.”
“Not today. No one is coming today.” He was holding a clipboard and casually checking things off.
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“I’m his wife. You can tell me.”
“Honey, your transfer is leaving soon. You can either stay here in the men’s prison or be taken back. What’s it gonna be?”
Tía called Mom almost every day.
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Listen, you’re getting out in a couple of months. File for divorce. Do it while he’s locked up. We’re planning on leaving New York. You could come with us.”
“Have you heard from him?” Tía asked.
“No, he wouldn’t call me.”
“He’s not dead, right?”
“They would tell us if he was dead, Rosa. Maybe he just wants to give you some space to figure out if you want to be with him. He knows you don’t deserve this—”
“Then what do I deserve, Diana? When do I deserve something? When does that happen to me?”
One day, just after his twelfth birthday, when Benito got home from school, his mother handed him the phone. Tía Rosa was on the line. Without any small talk, she said, “Write to him. You will write to your Tío Esteban.”
“What am I gonna say?”
“I don’t know. Write to him and tell him how much you miss him. And you want to know why he hasn’t responded to anyone’s letters. Tell him he’s acting like a child. Tell him he’s a fucking idiot.”
“You want me to tell Tío Esteban he’s a child?”
“Yes, and a fucking idiot. But I know you won’t. I know you’re too good for that, going to the blanquito school in suburbiaaaaa. So just write to him and tell him to call your tía.”
It seemed useless. It was obvious Tío Esteban didn’t want to be contacted. But Benito knew he’d upset his aunt if he didn’t at least try. She sounded tired, and he sensed her desperation.
That evening, he sat in the room he shared with his siblings and opened the notebook he used for class. He rocked back and forth in the red plastic chair he had for years, hearing the back of his shirt rub against it, making a swoosh-swoosh sound. He took his sneakers off, still damp from playing near the pond up the road, and threw them against the baseboard heater near his wooden desk. He was outgrowing everything lately: the chair, the desk, the sneakers. His knees hit the top of the desk, making him feel scrunched up, like a balled-up tissue inside his pocket.
The closest he’d come to writing a letter was when he scribbled notes in school. They consisted of a couple of lines that he’d pass to someone sitting a few rows down. But writing a letter to his tío was more meaningful. He wouldn’t get a response right away. He probably wouldn’t get one at all.
Benito looked at the blank page in his notebook. If Tío didn’t want to be contacted, who was he to cause him discomfort? He wasn’t Tío’s son. He wasn’t even his blood relative.
He thought about how miserable his uncle must be in prison, locked in a cell the size of a lamp shade, without TV, family, or friends. He thought about how miserable he would be if he was locked up.
He never thought he’d love living on Staten Island, but he did. He loved the freedom of walking the streets without supervision, the feeling of safety, not having to tie up his bike or have someone watch it when he went into the store. What would he say to his uncle now, knowing that his own life was 100% better since they’d moved away from him? His aunt and uncle’s antics hadn’t annoyed him as they had some people in his family, like his father, who said guys like Esteban could not be trusted and would probably never heal. Sometimes Benito cried at night, too many nights, missing his aunt and uncle. He had known them his entire life. They were not easy to forget just like that. But it was because things were better, not worse, that meant he could help his tío and tía.
After a little while, Benito began to write.
Dear Tío Esteban. How are you? How is jail? My parents are very worried about you. Well, they are more angry than worried. But they asked me to send you a letter to see why you haven’t written anyone back. And why you won’t see Tía. They’re saying all kinds of bad things about you. But I want you to know, I don’t believe them.
I miss you a lot, Tío Esteban.
I remember you used to make me a sandwich, ham and cheese. I wish you were here to make it now. If you were home, we could do that. I promise that when you come back, we will. And you can teach me how to make the sandwich. Mom says it was just ham and cheese, but whenever she tries to make it, it doesn’t taste the same as when you did. Anyway, I just want to let you know that it was really good. A person who could make a sandwich like that shouldn’t be in jail. You should be with your family. I can’t wait till the day when I see you, Tío Esteban.
Your nephew, Benito.
He sealed the letter before his mom could read it and gave it to her to mail. Then he started to cry, and went to his room and locked the door before his father could see him. And he sat in front of a fan and let it cool his face.
At school, he never told anyone his uncle and aunt were in prison. He wasn’t prepared for the questions they would have. Plus, his mom never told him the truth about why they were there. She’d made up some story about tax evasion, which he didn’t quite understand, but he knew wasn’t true.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me the real reason?” Benito said now, switching the phone from one ear to the next.
“I was protecting your tía. But you already knew the truth, Benito.”
“Yeah, I did,” he said.
Mom cleared her throat. “Back then, we never told the kids things like that. When you have them, make sure you do the same.”
“Kids are not—”
“I know . . . I know, you don’t believe in them anymore. Right? Is that what you were going to say?”
“They aren’t for everyone, Mami.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice was taut. He pictured her dark eyes widening angrily as she sat at her table. “Keep your faith. Tía kept her faith.”
After a moment or two, he said, “Why is it so difficult to talk to you sometimes?” He put the phone down on his desk, then quickly picked it up again, not wanting to risk losing the call. Then Mom said, “Why do you have such a hard time listening, Papito?”
When a note finally came back from E. Roulet State Prison, Benito and his mother stood in the living room hypnotized by its presence on their coffee table. It was as if they’d received a letter from an A-list celebrity or from the Prince of Egypt himself.
Benito told his mother that she should open it. “Yes, Papito, of course,” she said, grabbing a butter knife and quickly slicing through. The look of disappointment on her face said it all. Tío had written back, but it was only a single piece of paper.
Dear Benito,
- You must use white bread toast.
- Butter the bread but use salted butter.
- Warm ham. DO NOT fry it. Boil for 30 seconds.
- Provolone.
- Make sure whomever you are making it for, you wish the best for in life.
- Smoke four cigarettes afterwards.
- I’m sorry for leaving you, Benito.
Beto Caradepiedra is the son of Panamanian immigrants—an inheritance he explores through fiction rooted in memory, migration, and identity. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in StoryQuarterly, Pleiades, Callaloo, Northwest Review, Huizache, and other journals. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College and lives in New York City, where he was born and raised. Beto is a recipient of the Fine Arts Work Center Scholars Award, a VONA fellow, and a proud Macondista.
Read more from the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing 2025 Finalists.
