"Of course we regret getting together, but we all have in mind that this could be a lesson for all of us," Alexa Aragonez, Enriqueta's daughter, told The Washington Post on Sunday. "One moment of carelessness has cost us a month of peace, has cost us sleep, has cost us laughs, has cost us a lot of money."

Eight members of the Aragonez family drove from Arlington to Fort Worth for the birthday lunch at her cousin's house, where four other relatives lived. The plan was never to gather indoors, Aragonez said, but as family members arrived, people congregated in the living room, where for a couple of hours, everyone sat around the couch without masks, sharing fajitas and chocolate cake.

"It really was: Hey, I'm coming in' and everyone started talking," Aragonez said. "They naturally gravitated to the living room. ... It was not like we were, Let's all hang out inside.' We fell back into our old habits."

The next day, one of the cousins who had attended the lunch texted the group. "I did not wake up feeling well," she wrote. "How are you feeling?"

More and more relatives soon chimed in that they, too, had fallen ill. And within five days, all 12 relatives who had attended the gathering, including four children and a pregnant woman, had tested positive for the coronavirus.

"Everyone. It did not miss a single one," Aragonez said. "Everyone who went to the event tested positive."