Sandy

Sandy is Joe Goldberg's mother, she is featured in flashbacks in Season 2 and 3.

Biography
Not much is known about Sandy other than she had her eldest son, Joe, who she called "Joey", very young. She tried her best to take care of him, although she had multiple abusive boyfriends that physically abused the both of them, as well as working as a prostitute to financially support them. This lead to her soliciting to men in public, as happened when she left her son at a grocery store in order to have drinks with a man interested in her.

After this incident, Sandy had Joe lie to her boyfriend/Joe's father about them being at the market, which lead to his father burning Joe with a cigarette in order to get the truth out of him. Joe kept quiet, to which his mother thanked and promised him that she would kill his father so they could live happily together.

Sandy eventually decided to leave her abusive boyfriend after he left multiple bruises on her arms. She ordered Joe to start packing while she went out, returning with a man named Dale, upsetting Joe as he thought it would just be him and his mother, refusing to get in the car with the strange man. Unable to convince her son, Sandy stayed behind as well so he wouldn't be left alone with his father.

Some time later, Sandy hid a gun in a closet Joe liked to sit inside, saying that her boyfriend would never hurt them again. This came in handy when Joe's father attacked Sandy after finding out she was seeing someone. Joe grabbed the gun and shot his father in the chest, killing him. Sandy freaked out, saying Joe shouldn't have killed him, but came to the conclusion that Joe was only trying to protect her and had to be done. She took the gun out of his hands and affirmed that her son would never hurt anyone and was an accident, much less kill someone.

However, realizing how she was unable to take care of her son and wanting a fresh start without him, decided to give Joe up to Irving Group Home for Boys, stating that she could never take care of him alone and kept his father around so he could have a male figure to learn from.

Once Joe was gone, Sandy's life turned around, presumably finding a new partner, living in a nice brownstone, and having another son named Jacob who she called "Jakey". After a few years, she and her new family were moving out of their brownstone when Joe found her, shocked to see that he was replaced by Jakey as well as hearing her say that she wouldn't be anywhere else than with his younger half-brother. Joe approached her, much to her shock. Joe asks her what's wrong with him for her to leave him, if it was him killing his father, to which Sandy replied that she made too many mistakes and was hurting, in need of starting over completely. With that, she and Jakey left Joe, never to be seen again.

Her abandonment of Joe caused a lot of physiological issues for him and a possible reason that caused Joe to behave the way he does. In season 3, when Marienne was yelling at Joe, he thought of all the women that have yelled at him and pieced together that he has "mommy issues". Sandy is only in flashbacks throughout the series.