Mary Higgins Clark, 77, is the author of 24 bestselling thrillers. She has five children from her first marriage and now lives with her third husband, John Conheeney, in Saddle River, New Jersey.
As the middle child and only daughter, I was definitely a daddy’s girl. But when I was 10 Daddy died. He ran an Irish bar and grill in the Bronx, but it was the Depression and people weren’t paying their bills. He had a heart attack in his sleep and my mother always said it was the worry that killed him.
It was through my mother that I learnt to cope with tragedy. She grieved, but she didn’t collapse. She was an older mother — 40 when she had her first child — and she had extraordinary patience. We took in lodgers and after school I would go downtown to work shifts on a hotel switchboard. She instilled in all of us that sense that if we looked after each other, we would pull through. But none of us knows in the morning whether those we love will make it through the day. My elder brother Joe was 18 when he died of spinal meningitis. For me, those losses defined the way I have loved throughout my life. I’m no pushover, but unimportant things just do not get to me.
I dated through my teens but I’d grown up too quickly to have any use for boys my own age. Warren Clark, my first husband, was a neighbour and nine years my senior. I’d had a crush on him since I was 12 but it wasn’t until I was 21 that we got it together. I joined Pan American as an air stewardess and invited him to my leaving party. Afterwards, he took me for a nightcap and began scribbling names on a napkin. It was the guest list for our wedding. He said I wasn’t to go all girlie and cute on him because it was obvious we were going to marry. We set a date for Christmas, because people are more generous then.
Warren worked in the travel business. I stayed home and began my writing career. He was incredibly proud when I sold my first short story. We had a lot of fun, but we also shared the same goals: we wanted the best education for our five children. The eldest was 13 and the youngest just a baby when Warren dropped dead of a heart attack. The night he died, a light went out in my soul.
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I vowed I would not marry while the children were around. I treasured my independence. As long as I could support my children, no man could tell me how they were to be raised. As for the children, it was better to have the memory of a father who loved them than a stepfather who maybe favoured one above the other, or did not like them at all.
It was lonely, of course, because the world goes two-by-two, and it’s worse when you’ve had a happy marriage because you know what you’re missing. I also knew what my children were missing by not having a father. But my mother was right: if you look after each other, you pull through.
Patty, my youngest, had just left home and I had just won my first million-dollar writing contract when I met my second husband in 1978. Everyone is entitled to one mistake and he was mine. After so many years alone, I was yearning for someone in my life, but I picked the wrong one.
I swore I’d never marry again, but ten years ago Patty called to say: “Have I got a hunk for you.” John was a retired Merrill Lynch executive who had been widowed after 40 years. I invited him to a party and three months later he proposed. He suggested that the wedding be held a couple of years later — but when you are in your mid-sixties you don’t know how much longer you’ve got. We were married that Thanksgiving.
I’ve always been realistic, but my realism doesn’t eclipse my romantic side. John reignited that light in my soul. We go out for dinner every night and we never run out of things to say. I was good at marriage and I missed it hugely. I am very blessed to have this love back in my life.
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Interview by CATHERINE O’BRIEN
Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark, Simon & Schuster, £17.99