On the Other Side of the Door

Lily knew she should've been used to waiting rooms at this point. She was fairly certain she'd seen the inside of every single waiting room in Springfield at this point.

Big.

Small.

Themed.

Empty.

Clinical.

Packed.

Dreary.

Name an office with a waiting room and Lily had probably been there and done that.

So, it was with a gloomy resignation over time, that Lily had found herself becoming one with the routine that was the waiting room.

She knew the routine like the back of her hand. From the waiting room she had sat in for a half hour last week which was covered head to toe in neon green wallpaper, to the creepy waiting room she had been to about a year ago that looked as though it had walked right out of a Stephen King novel, she considered herself to be well acquainted with the logistics of the waiting room protocol.

It either went: paperwork, wait, wait some more, stress, stress some more, relief and repeat. Or, drop off, wait, pace, stress, wait, pull the car up and go home.

Quite frankly, it seemed to Lily as though her whole life had become one big waiting room.

To Lily these waiting rooms were the carriers of her stories. The very best and very worst of her life experiences seemed to always be waiting for her just beyond the doors of the very quarters she spent endless hours waiting in. It was a reality she found impossible to ignore.

Six years ago, it had been on the other side of blue waiting room double doors that she fell to her knees in relief when she found out her grandfather had survived triple bypass surgery.

Four years ago, it was a couple feet away from a single white door leading out of Springfield Medical’s ER that she tripped over her shoe lace and literally fell headfirst when she then met the love of her life.

Three years ago, it was in the waiting room of the same exact ER, where she miscarried her first baby. All that remained was the sound of her sobs and a distinct trail of never ending blood dripping down her legs and collecting on the floor, right next to that same very door where she had stumbled into Eric just a year prior.

Then two years ago, it was in front of a large mahogany wood door that after a half hour of pacing, her sister came out and told Lily that she was officially cancer free.

So needless to say, it was no exaggeration that in waiting rooms Lily had experienced both the best of times and the worst of times. But, this time was different. Perhaps just as stressful, but different. This waiting room she knew would likely be ingrained in her memory for the rest of her life.

Inside this waiting room she knew the outcome before it happened. A miracle and a blessing she was quick to recognize as she paced its small space.

This very room was the purgatory between the life she had lived until this very moment, and the life ahead. The last thirty two years and eight months of her life had led to this moment. So clear and yet filled with so many unknowns. A beautiful unknown. A life born anew. But with that exciting unknown came a WHOLE LOT of nerves, which is how Lily found herself unable to even consider sitting still as she continued pacing through the quaint room while waiting on her husband Eric who was rushing over from work.

After another ten minutes of nerve gnawing pacing, a young woman and child slid past the propped open glass doors, entered the room, and sat on the couch across from where she had been pacing. So to avoid unnecessary awkwardness, Lily turned her pacing into a subtle but constant leg twitch as she stopped and plopped herself down on the couch behind her, trying her best to keep still and abate her nerves.

The little boy was playing on his iPad, staring intensely at the bright screen as dull sounds of swords slashing came from it. The woman beside him looked around, and Lily couldn't avoid making inadvertent awkward eye contact. As they locked eyes for a moment, the woman gave a small smile which Lily returned then quickly averted her eyes.

"Here for a friend?" the woman asked breaking the heavy silence.

Lily looked back to the woman, leg still bouncing up and down, and replied with a vague "Something like that", with a wry smile. "What about you?"

"Oh!" replied the woman a bright smile overtaking her face leaning forward in excitement, "My cousin is having her first baby! And she's been trying for sooo long, so the whole family is over the moon! "

"My sister is actually in the room with her right now," the woman continued, "but someone needed to sit out here with this little bone head" she said said laughingly as she ruffled the little boy's hair.

Other then a little eye roll from the boy and a brief half smile, the little boy paid them no mind and continued playing his game.

"Ah well...tell her congratulations." Lily said with a scratch of her head in cringy awkwardness, looking away from the smiling woman , not knowing what to say.

An uncomfortable silence filled the room, and the woman across from her looked down at her phone as her smile slipped off her face.

Never able to sit with the uncomfortable silence, and finally deciding it was time to let herself be happy, she summed up the courage to tell someone her story and with a deep breath began saying "I actually am waiting for-" only to be interrupted by an abrupt shout of "LILY!" as a frazzled Eric ran towards the waiting room from the elevator bank across the hall.

Stumbling right into the room he asked "Did I miss it?!"

"No, you obviously didn't miss it honey." Lily said with a laugh. " Now sit down and have a load off. You look like you ran the whole way here instead of drove".

Eric, in all his frazzled excitement plopped himself down right beside Lily and with a big exhale looked over at her and gave her a toothy grin so infectious that was impossible not to reciprocate.

"What a day, huh" Eric said while still smiling at Lily.

"What a day indeed" Lily replied looking back across the room. " I was just beginning to tell- oh I'm sorry I didn't get your name?" she said looking back to the woman across from them.

"Oh, I'm Erica" she replied while reaching across the coffee table between them to shake her hand.

"Lily" she replied, and motioned beside her " and this is my husband Eric".

"Nice to meet you both" said Erica as she reached to shake Eric's hand. "So do tell! I feel like you were just about to tell me who you're waiting for!"

Before Lily could reply, there was a throat cleared, and both women and Eric turned to look at Dr. Feldman standing in the threshold of the waiting room doors with a smile on her face.

"Well in fact, they were waiting to meet their daughter" she said with a coy smile.

Lily froze for a moment, taking a moment to recognize what the doctor had just said. She then gripped Eric's hand in hers and sat up taller.

"Were waiting?" Lily trepidatiously asked. "As in she's here?"

"She is very much here. 7 pounds 6 ounces here in fact." Dr. Feldman replied with a grin. "Well, Lily, Eric? Would you like to come meet your daughter?" She gestured her arm out towards the hall. Frozen the two sat there a moment longer.

"She's just beyond these doors" the doctor said.

Her life had always been just beyond those doors.

Shaking suddenly gone, Lily stood up without letting go of Eric's hand, and they stepped beyond the waiting room walls- their lives inextricably changed forever.