Noah Kennedy, four years old, is drunk again. Due to an acid-base enzyme imbalance in the lining of his mouth, his saliva instantly ferments all liquids to alcohol.

Megan Kennedy was called megaphone because she didn’t need one.

Mrs. Kennedy recalled listening to Noah crying in his crib at night. He was almost two and he could say thirsty. He pronounced it fursty.

One day in early September Mr. Kennedy would come home from work and tell Mrs. Kennedy that he’d seen his first school bus of the season, and that would signal to her that she should begin fixing him whiskey highballs after dinner instead of vodka tonics.

The year he started eighth grade, Lucas Kennedy started putting his father’s whiskey in soda after school. His first mixes were purposely very weak. But before long he was mixing doubles and downing them. He’d raise his soda can in Noah’s direction and say, Cheers, little dude.

Mrs. Kennedy told the pediatrician that Noah’s breath smelled like beer. The doctor laughed. Later, Mrs. Kennedy overheard the doctor speaking about Noah with his receptionist. He called Noah little baby bobble-head.

Noah’s diagnosis took several years. A doctor from North Carolina reading his case dubbed the condition Bootlegger’s Syndrome. This nifty coinage brought national attention to the doctor and then to Noah once his identity was deduced.

Megan’s hand smelled of puppetry, which had become for her a passion. She was sent back to the bathroom to wash her hands before dinner. Megan was given puppets to see if she might find a new voice for herself.

If Noah acted silly, Mrs. Kennedy would give him a blood test. It was more accurate than the breathalyzer.

The signal in spring for vodka tonics was different every year for Mr. Kennedy—the sight of a particular migrating bird or some early perennials preparing to bloom, an item on the evening news about pitchers and catchers reporting to Florida for spring training.

The juiceboxes were kept in the locked cupboard. One six ounce juicebox is for Noah the equivalent of a fifth of bourbon for a full-grown man. Just a sip, Mrs. Kennedy told Noah.

Megan brought her father’s old turntable into her bedroom and began playing Tapestry by Carole King. She played side one over and over. Megan put her puppets away for good. She mixed rubbing alcohol with fingernail polish remover and bubblegum flavored cough syrup. She drank it from one of the souvenir shot glasses from Mr. Kennedy’s collection.

At her first AA meeting, Mrs. Kennedy sat next to the only other woman her age. The woman’s name was Joan and she immediately asked Mrs. Kennedy if she had any gum. She said, I feel just toothless without a stick of gum in my mouth.

Deep in the woods behind his house, Noah discovered naturally occurring train tracks. He followed the tracks over the hill at the end of the woods and into the long clearing. He drank water from a small mud puddle and looked up to see that his brother Lucas was in the clearing with a girl who was hiding her face. Lucas was holding two cans of soda. Noah walked backwards from the long clearing and counted his steps out of the woods to the backdoor of his house so he would be sure to find his way to the tracks in the dark later that night.