What she learned in that one bad second
When you dropped her or caught her tail underfoot, your cat did not file the event under accidents. She learned, in one sharp lesson, that your approaching feet or hands can suddenly hurt, and that the room where it happened may predict more of the same. Avoiding you afterwards is that lesson working exactly as designed — it is caution, not spite or a permanently broken bond. One-off accidents with a person she otherwise trusts are usually repairable, because they sit on top of a long history of safe interactions. Your job is to add enough new, boring, safe evidence that the one frightening memory stops being her best prediction.
Expect the wariness to be specific: she may accept you seated but flee from you walking toward her, or flinch at a hand over her head. Those details tell you exactly what to retrain.
Hand control back to her, visibly
For the first days, remove pressure entirely. Do not follow her, extract her from hiding, or carry her to prove things are fine — being caught and held after a scare confirms that escape does not work. Instead, make yourself smaller and more predictable: sit or lie on the floor in the room she has chosen, keep your hands still and low, and let her investigate you in her own time. Speak in the ordinary voice she knows, and avoid looming over her or reaching toward her face, both of which replay the shape of the accident.
Place high-value treats by tossing them gently to land near her, then progressively nearer to you across sessions, never requiring her to eat from your hand before she offers that closeness herself. A cat who approaches, eats and stays to groom nearby is giving you a progress report. A cat who snatches and retreats needs more distance, not better treats. End each session by leaving first while she is still comfortable, so parting is your choice at a calm moment rather than her escape at a tense one.
Rebuild the exact scene that frightened her
Once she is relaxed around you at floor level, retrain the specific trigger in tiny steps. If you stepped on her tail in the hallway, walk that hallway slowly when she is watching from a safe perch, announcing yourself by talking, and toss a treat as you pass without stopping or reaching for her. If you dropped her while lifting, postpone picking up until she is fully relaxed with you again, then rebuild handling in tiny rewarded steps — and only if she needs to be lifted at all.
Watch your own feet as part of the repair: shuffle in rooms where she sleeps underfoot and talk as you move through dark rooms at night. Preventing a second incident matters more than any apology ritual.
Timeline, setbacks and when to get help
Most cats soften within a few days and are broadly themselves within one to two weeks, though progress is rarely straight — a wary day mid-week does not mean the repair is lost. Judge by the trend, not a single evening.
Check the physical side as carefully as the emotional one. A stepped-on tail can be bruised or, occasionally, more seriously injured, and a dropped cat can hide pain behind the same hiding behaviour you are reading as distrust. If she cries when the tail is touched, holds it oddly, limps, stops eating, or stays withdrawn beyond a few days with no softening at all, have your veterinarian examine her rather than continuing behaviour work on assumption. For the slow, doubtful days in between, put a follow-up question to KinsLe's Kinny; he answers using the KinsLe Answers library.