Book Excerpt: "Grace Will Lead Me Home"

Robin Givens' Memoir Recounts Her Stormy Marriage to Mike Tyson

(CBS) 
Once again, I was pleased to say “Happy New Year!” in return.
I left the store carrying both bags and a cup of coffee I’d gotten for
myself and headed down Broadway. I wondered if the boys might be
awake and asking for me. It was too warm for gloves so I pulled them
off and stuffed them into the pocket of my big down coat. This walk
had reminded me just how much I love New York, but it was also difficult to put out of my mind the reasons why I felt I’d had to leave
my home, the events that had shaken my family loose from its core,
but not from each other. My mom added extra locks and an alarm
to an apartment that for years had been kept safe simply by the protective
scrutiny of our doormen. The safety and, most of all, the sanctity
of home felt violated

I fumbled in my pocket, past the gloves, and pulled out my cell
phone. I scrolled down the stored numbers and stopped at one in
particular. I felt anxious about making this call. My legs felt a bit
weak and my head felt a bit light, but actually I felt a bit lighter too.
There was a bench in front of a coffeehouse near Seventy-second
Street. My heart was pounding and I took the liberty of sitting
there, cell phone in hand, as I sipped my coffee and drifted off in
thought . . .

“Rob, come on! Ma told us to hurry up,” Michael said, rushing
down Broadway. But I wasn’t trying to hurry or even keep up.
“Michael, the snow is so great!” I yelled as he got farther away. On
my hands and knees in the fresh snow, I made a couple of snowballs
to catch him by surprise.

“Will you come on?” he called once again.

“No,” I answered, as a snowball struck him in the chest.

“Rob, stop it,” he said, dusting the snow off his coat, unfazed by
my attack. “Do you have the list?”

“No,” I answered again, throwing another snowball. This one was
even less successful than the first, as he turned away so it never even
touched him. I became a little pouty. He wasn’t playing and my snowballs
were all duds.

“What do you mean, ‘no’? Ma gave you the list. I know I saw it.”
He was taking this shopping far too seriously.

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t need a list, I already know what to get. I
don’t know why she bothers to write a list anyway.” Maybe now he’d
relax and play a bit. “She always gets the same thing,” I went on, preparing
another snowball. “Everybody in Zabar’s knows what she gets.
Every holiday breakfast, it’s the same thing. Pumpernickel bread, brie,
mango chutney, whitefish,” I said, walking toward him. “Salmon roe,
roasted red peppers, and a loaf of French bre—” Bam! What felt like a
boulder of snow covered my face and pushed me back onto my butt.
Even before I’d had a chance to throw my latest bullet, he’d gotten me.

I screamed, “I can’t see! I can’t see!”

“You can see, Rob,” he said, bending over to wipe the snow off
my face. “Open your eyes, silly.”

“That hurt,” I said.

“It did not,” he said, kissing my cold cheek. “You should have
seen your face. Pow!” He laughed, pretending to fall back into the
snow, mimicking the way I’d looked when his snow-bomb hit. Now
I was laughing too. “You were so busy running your mouth, you
didn’t see it coming.” There were times when I just loved his laughter,
when it was warm and comforting. Those were the times when
he was the very definition of a friend.

He pulled me to my feet, dusted off my coat, and hugged me
tight. “You’re cold,” he said, holding my chilled hands in his to warm
them. “I love you,” he whispered in my ear. And with a loving pat on
the butt, he said, “Let’s go, Rob.”