Book Excerpt: "Grace Will Lead Me Home"

Robin Givens' Memoir Recounts Her Stormy Marriage to Mike Tyson

(CBS) 
I reached Columbus Circle. “Hey, Robin. How’s it goin’?” yelled
a policeman standing with two other cops. I was delighted to answer
him: “Great!” “Happy New Year,” they all said. I closed my eyes for
a moment and repeated to myself, “It is going great.” I was as excited to be in New York as the tourists who were out first thing this New
Year’s morning. I hadn’t lived in New York for quite some time. I had
called several places home in an attempt to find one that would be
truly home — a place where I’d find warmth on the coldest days, light
on the darkest nights, and solace in times of suffering. But with my
family and so many friends here, the fact is that New York has always
been my home.

Yet there had been a time when this home did not provide the comfort
that it should, when being in New York meant living with a bit of
anxiety and fear. A memory from that time surfaced, a young woman
telling me, “He should have kicked your ass . . . he should have killed
you.” I looked away from my friend — we had been engaged in a conversation.
She had coaxed me from my apartment, away from feeling
sorry for myself and out for a movie. Now I gazed into this stranger’s
face distorted with anger. Through the venom I could still see the innocent
beauty of a girl who had to be in her early twenties, about the
same age I was then. And I marveled at a campaign of hate that led this
young woman to believe that another young woman deserved to be
brutalized. So when Michael threatened casually and with conviction,
“I don’t have to kill you . . . I’ll make it so bad you’ll want to kill yourself.

You’ll have to leave home, you won’t feel safe anywhere,” I believed
him wholeheartedly, and his words proved prophetic. There was really
no need for his warnings. And with every display of his power, I lost
more and more confidence. When I objected that a newspaper story
wasn’t true, he simply responded, “I have the power to make the truth
what I want it to be.” The lies seemed to sell papers, and they certainly
manipulated public opinion and fueled ill will. But most painful of all,
most frightening of all, they confirmed my husband’s power. “If you
sling enough mud,” I once heard Phil Donahue say, “some of it is
bound to stick.”

Headed north on Broadway, I stared up at the street sign — Sixty-fifth
Street. I hadn’t planned to walk that far, but certainly I was enjoying
it, despite the memories that at one time would have been quite
painful. I could now recall them with greater understanding, and I
could focus on happier, more recent events.

The boys and I had arrived in New York about a week before
Christmas. We spent the week shopping and just reveling in the city
and each other. The kids had been looking forward to snow but the
weather was more like spring. Now, I looked up again to see where I
was . . . Seventy-fourth Street. Just a few more blocks to Zabar’s.
Stephanie and I did a lot of our growing up just a block away from
here. Mom always made sure we had something special from Zabar’s
on holiday mornings, and I found myself making my way there now.
Perhaps that memory of childhood rituals, the desire to give my children
similar memories, had been leading me uptown all along. I felt
happy and hopeful and free. But above all else, I was thankful that
my present moment, my here and now, was beyond anything I could
have imagined.

Eightieth Street, finally. There was a short line, so I took a number
and waited at the counter. After a few moments, the counterman
yelled, “Number 64!” I waved my ticket and said, “That’s me.” He
smiled in recognition and said, “Hey, Robin, what can I getcha?”
“I’ll take a dozen chocolate croissants,” I answered.

“What, no pumpernickel? No rugelach?” he prompted, remembering
the specifics of my mother’s usual order. I smiled back,
tickled by just how familiar I was to him and how familiar he was
to me.

“No, I’m just here to get chocolate croissants for my boys.” Suddenly
I was bursting with pride, feeling I was continuing a family tradition
in, literally, my own special flavor.

“I bet they’re getting big, huh? I haven’t seen ’em in a long time,”
he went on.

“Really big,” I answered, now smiling from ear to ear.

“Well, you’re in luck, Robin — I have some chocolate croissants
right out of the oven.”

Oops! I’d almost forgotten about Stephanie. “Make that ten chocolate
and two plain.”

“You got it.” He handed me the bag of chocolate croissants first —
“Careful, they’re hot” — and then the bag of plain ones.

“You take care and say hi to your mom. And Robin — Happy
New Year!”