The last box was gone. The movers had taken it, sealing the truck with a final, hollow thud. The sound echoed through the empty rooms of my house in Portland. For a week, the place had been a whirlwind of tape, cardboard, and decisions. Now, there was just dust and silence. I stood in the middle of the living room, the last person in my own history of this place. A strange relief settled over me. It was done.
Then, through the window, I saw my car.
My green Subaru sat in the driveway like a forgotten toy. It looked small and suddenly very alone. And in that second, the relief curdled. The drive. I had to drive it. Two thousand miles. To Atlanta. By myself. After days of goodbyes and lifting and crying in empty closets, the idea of getting behind the wheel for a marathon solo trip didn't feel like freedom. It felt like a prison sentence. My legs were jelly just thinking about it.
I called my friend Leo, my voice thin in the quiet house. "I don't think I can do the drive," I whispered, like it was a shameful secret.
"Then don't," he said, without a pause. "You just moved a whole house. Your job is done. Ship the car. Fly. Sleep on the plane. Show up in Atlanta like a person, not a zombie."
I'd never heard of shipping a car. It sounded complicated and expensive, something for soldiers or executives. "How does it even work?" I asked, defeated.
"Just call Book Auto Transport," he said. "Tell them you need door-to-door transport. They'll explain it. It's not magic. It's just smart."
The Woman Who Spoke in "Last Miles"
I called, expecting a call center. A woman named Anika answered. She had one of those voices that was calm but didn't waste time. I told her my situation—Portland to Atlanta, the empty house, the dread.
She didn't say she was sorry. She said, "Okay. Let's solve that." She called it door-to-door transport. I told her my worry about a giant truck on my quiet cul-de-sac. She understood immediately. "Door-to-door doesn't mean we block your street with a semi," she said. "It means we solve the last-mile problem. We find the closest, safest, legal spot for the driver to load and unload. Sometimes that's your driveway. Sometimes it's the end of the block. Our drivers are experts at that puzzle."
She asked for my Portland address and my new apartment address in Atlanta. I heard her typing. "Your street in Portland is wide, no low branches. That's easy. Your Atlanta apartment... the parking lot is big, but the management needs a heads-up. We'll coordinate all that. You won't have to."
Just like that, she was handling problems I hadn't even formed into questions yet.
The Handoff
The driver's name was Walt. He called the day before. "Just confirming the spot," he said, his voice a low rumble. "I'll be at the curb at 8 a.m. We'll do the walk-around."
When he arrived, he was exactly what I needed: a professional. No rush. He had a tablet. For fifteen minutes, we circled my Subaru. He noted every scratch, every ding I'd stopped seeing years ago—the scuff on the rear bumper from a shopping cart, the tiny chip on the hood. He took photos. It was the most thorough inspection my car had ever had. He wasn't judging it; he was documenting its story.
I handed him the keys. It felt surreal. This was my car, my independence. He put them in his pocket and gave me a clipboard to sign. "We'll take good care of her," he said. And I believed him. He wasn't a stranger taking my car. He was a specialist taking over the one job I couldn't face.
The Math That Isn't About Money
I did the calculator math. Gas, hotels, food, wear and tear. Shipping cost more. But the real math was different. It was the cost of driving exhausted on I-40 through the Smokies. The cost of loneliness in a cheap motel. The cost of arriving in my new city so drained I couldn't face the unpacked boxes. The cost of risking an accident when my mind was already a thousand miles behind me, in an empty house.
Paying for door-to-door transport was buying the absence of all that cost. It was buying the version of me that could land in Atlanta, take a deep breath, and be ready to start. Anika and Walt weren't selling me a trip for my car. They were selling me back my own energy.
The Reunion
Walt called from the road near Atlanta. "Be there in an hour," he said. I walked out to the leasing office parking lot. Seeing my green Subaru with its Oregon plates sitting there, clean and safe, was one of the most welcoming sights I've ever seen. It was a piece of my old life, delivered neatly to the new one.
Walt and I did the walk-around again with his tablet photos. Perfect. He handed me the keys. "All set," he said, with a brief nod. He got in his truck and drove away.
I got in my car. It smelled the same. My coffee mug was still in the holder. It was just my car, in a new city. The journey between here and there had vanished, without any toll on me.
The Gift
My move had two possible endings. One ended with me stumbling into Atlanta, sore and strung out, my car full of fast-food wrappers. The other ended with me walking to a parking lot, getting into my clean car, and driving to get groceries for my empty fridge.
Book Auto Transport gave me the second ending. Door-to-door transport wasn't a luxury. It was the logical final step in a move. It was the recognition that after you've moved everything you own, you deserve to move yourself with a little bit of grace.