Tight Knit is a brilliant triple-entendre title for this story of a mother and daughter’s relationship. It’s full of subtle metaphor that reveals itself on a reread (and you’re sure to reread it).

The jersey was so tightly knitted that it could stand up on its own. It had a crew neck and five thick horizontal stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. I forced my head through the unforgiving neck and shimmied my arms up the inside of it, pushing them through the armholes and down the sleeves. I felt like I was wearing a hot, itchy, straitjacket. My neck burned against the wool and throbbed angrily against the sensation of being choked. 

‘It suits you, Nat,’ Mum said, walking around me, smiling. I smiled back and thanked her.