Setup
Kezia had been on the same fourteen retirement gift websites for four days, and they had all reached the same conclusion: Diane needed a wine glass that said "Retired: Goodbye Tension, Hello Pension."
She did not.
Diane ran operations at the company for thirty-one years—before Kezia got there, before the third CEO, before the building moved twice. She was the one who knew which vendor had a two-week delay problem even when the vendor swore they didn't. She booked conference rooms for the number of people who would actually show up, not the number who RSVP'd. When the company switched invoice platforms in 2019 and the finance team spent six weeks in collective panic, Diane had already mapped out the workaround in a shared doc two weeks before go-live. The morning the company announced a department restructuring, she walked into the conference room with a tray of blueberry muffins before the email went out. Nobody asked how she knew. That was the thing about Diane: nobody asked. They just depended on her.
She was retiring in eleven days.
"I'm so ready," she'd said approximately forty times since January.
Kezia didn't entirely believe her. Not because Diane was lying, but because she'd never seen Diane do anything other than this. Six years working next to her—she knew Diane took the 7:12 train. She knew Diane had three houseplants she referred to by name: Gerald, Carter, and the problem child. They were all named after presidents, which nobody at the office had ever commented on because that would require asking Diane a question about herself. She knew Diane kept blueberry muffin mix in her desk drawer the way other people keep Advil.
But outside of that? Nothing volunteered. No hobbies offered. No retirement plans beyond "I'll figure it out."
Kezia had spent two days trying to think her way through options. A travel voucher felt presumptuous—Diane had mentioned travel the same vague way people mention getting better at yoga. A photo book labeled "Thirty-One Years" felt like a consolation prize for someone who hadn't lost anything yet. She'd considered a fancy coffee maker before realizing, forty-eight hours ago, that Diane didn't drink coffee.
Eleven days to find a gift for someone whose entire identity had been that the office didn't collapse.
Gift
She added Diane to Forgift out of something between desperation and the certainty that the wine glass would be a betrayal.
She entered what she knew: thirty-one years in operations, extraordinarily organized, doesn't mention her personal life, has mentioned travel vaguely, keeps everything running for everyone else before they know it needs running.
The app came back with a question she hadn't expected:
You've described someone who's spent thirty years anticipating what other people need. What does she do when nobody needs anything from her?
Kezia read it twice.
She didn't know. After six years, she didn't know.
She texted Sandra, who'd left the company four years ago and still remembered Kezia's birthday because Sandra was like that. "What did Diane do," she asked. "Like, outside of here. Hobbies, anything."
Sandra thought for a minute. "She had a garden. At her old house, before the condo. A real one, not just plants in pots. She mentioned it maybe once—said it was the only thing she'd ever done that had its own schedule and didn't care about hers." A beat. "I always thought that was the most Diane thing she'd ever said."
Kezia had what she needed.
Not a travel voucher. Not a photo book with gold-foil lettering. She ordered three large self-watering planters, a bag of premium potting mix, and a seed selection: tomatoes, basil, and one purely decorative zinnia she added because Diane had never done anything decorative in six years and maybe retirement was exactly the time to start. She registered her for a Saturday container-garden workshop at a nursery twenty minutes from her condo. One afternoon. No further commitment required.
The note took nine drafts. The final version said four words:
The garden's timeline is yours.
Moment
The goodbye lunch was at the Italian place around the corner, which had been the default for every office milestone since 2014.
They gave Diane the end of the table, which she found mildly mortifying and managed gracefully. She opened the card first, because she was Diane, and she read every signature. Then the gift.
The usual quiet fell over the group—everyone watching, waiting—which Diane had always navigated by controlling her face exactly as much as the situation required. She looked at the planters. She turned one over to check the drainage holes, which was such a Diane move that someone at the table laughed, and she looked up without expression and set it back down. She stacked the seed packets neatly. She read the note once, then again.
Then she looked at Kezia. "How did you know about the garden?"
"Sandra."
"Sandra hasn't worked here in four years."
"I know."
A moment passed. Diane set the note down with the same care she used on documents that needed filing—precisely, without ceremony. "These are good planters," she said, and went back to her pasta.
No one else at the table entirely followed what had just happened. That seemed right.
Later, on the sidewalk after, she touched Kezia's arm once. Two seconds, firm. Said nothing. Then walked to the 7:12.
Ripple Effect
Three months passed without much contact. Diane wasn't a texter, which was consistent.
Then a photo arrived with no caption: a tomato on the vine, deep green, maybe a week from ready.
Eight days after that: the same tomato, fully red, with two more behind it coming into focus. Still nothing written.
Kezia showed it to her partner that night, trying to explain why she was weirdly moved by a photo of produce from a woman she mostly knew from shared conference rooms. She kept landing on the same thing: this was Diane doing something that had nothing to do with anyone else needing it done. Thirty-one years of other people's timelines. Now a balcony garden in three planters, on a schedule that hadn't been approved by anyone.
She sent a thumbs-up. It felt right.
Two weeks later, a third photo: the zinnia, orange, blooming with no context. Just the flower, on the balcony railing.
Kezia forwarded it to Sandra with no explanation. Sandra texted back four seconds later: "IS THAT A ZINNIA."
"Yes."
"She grew a ZINNIA? Diane?"
Kezia sent a thumbs-up.
About a week after that, she ran into Gerald from procurement in the elevator. She mentioned she'd heard from Diane. Gerald—the actual Gerald, forty-seven, navy blazer every Thursday—looked mildly confused and said he didn't know Diane had his number.
Kezia realized she'd never actually figured out which plant was Gerald.
She still hasn't.
— Forgift & Forget
